Alex’s Awesome Blog

Hey blog! I lied, if you have read my most recent post. I said I would be blogging for a while, and you would probably see my in September, but here I am, blogging AGAIN, the day after I said that. 

I do get to talk about something a little more fun (in my opinion), which is my spring exhibition! This was my first Spring Exhibition, and I loved it!

For this exhibition my grade did a project on advertising and making advertisements (Medium is the Message), and our final product was showcased during it. This was the last project we did in humanities this year, SO LETS TALK ABOUT IT. 

My driving question for this project was: “How does advertising persuade, sell, and influence society?” 

Like I said, this project was all about advertising. We started by learning about the basics; what a target audience is, advertising techniques, advertising appeals, and looking at professional advertisements. This was really interesting, and really fun. I think this was my favourite pert of the project. Then we started taking what we learned and putting into a “persuasive chart”. That’s just a funny name for it, what it really was was a chart with ads we got to pick, then learn about. We had to wright what types of techniques and appeals they used, and what we thought the message of the ad was. I liked this project, but I really struggled with it. My teacher, Ms. Willemse, was gone for this project, so we had a substitute teacher. I know it is very hard for substitutes, so I’m not blaming him, but sadly he couldn’t answer some of the questions I had. I struggled a with the criteria, and understanding the expectations Ms. Willemse.

After the persuasive chart, we started making our REAL ads! What I forgot to mention earlier was that some of the project was done while we were on our Oregon trip! And during our Oregon trip we stopped at lots of different companies, companies we would advertise for! My company was Marine Discovery Tours. I got to interview the owner Fran, and ask her questions about her business, her advertising, and her life story! I recorded our conversation, so once we got back to school, everyone advertising for the company could write down notes. This part was pretty cool because I got to know my group a lot better just by sharing this information. I had to go ask them questions, and answer questions they had for me. 

Then came the exciting and very important part! Making the ads. After learning about advertising and learning about my company, I got to make a print ad for them. I found this very hard at first, but slowly it came to me. My problem was I had no idea where to even start. I had an idea of what I wanted, but making the first draft was really difficult. I think I made it so hard for myself because I am scared of failure, and I didn’t want my first draft to be a fail. LOL. It was. And I am ok with that. I wasn’t ok with it being a failure as I was making it though. And right after handing it in I wanted to make a new BETTER one, so failing worked out good for me! After lots and lots of drafts I finally created an ad I was happy with.

Now that I made the ad, I was ready for the exhibition! Because my grades “theme” was advertising, each group had 1 booth that they all shared and decorated to match the theme of their company! I loveddddd decorating so much! I think my group did AMAZING and I think our booth looked great! Presenting was also pretty cool. Having so many people come up and talk to me about my work always makes me feel good, because it makes me think my work is good enough for them to have to ask/talk to me about it. I also really enjoyed the exhibition because all my team came! My coach, and all my friends!! It was super nice of them because none of my family could make it, so seeing them made my day. It was also a surprise, and I love a good surprise.

Overall this project was really fun, same with the exhibition. I feel like I have answered the driving question with this reflection, the keystone I have done, and my final product. What do you think?

Hey blog, this is my tPOL (transitional presentation of learning)! Basically me talking about my school year, and reflecting on it. I’m also going to be answering the driving question: “why do you feel your ready to advance to the next grade level?”. 

Pretty scary question to answer right?

It’s good though, because it really makes me think about how I did this year. What did I do good on? What did I do bad on? Did I really learn from my victories and mistakes? I guess you will get to find out with me! Get ready to read a LOT, because it might take me a while to answer this.

“Thank you for coming to my presentation of learning. I am the expert on my own learning. I am also responsible and accountable for my own learning. You can expect me to give an honest evaluation of my progress. We will discuss my strengths and opportunities for growth. Thank you in advance for listening and offering feedback that I can use to improve as a learner.”

This year was my first year in high-school, in PLP, and also not school I had been going to my entire life. I know this was a similar experience that everyone in my class had, but it still effected me very much. I have grown not just as a learner, but as a person. Being surrounded by so many talented, smart, creative, and inspiring people has been such a privilege. 

Being around theses amazing people keeps me always reflecting on myself. I know this isn’t a great habit, but I often find myself comparing myself to others. So when someone succeeded in my class, I would think how I could be more like them. I think this has helped me for the better.

After the quick introduction, let’s jump into it by looking at science!

Science 

I had science for my second term this year, and I had a blast(mostly). I have always really liked science, though I have not always been great at it. This year especially I found myself struggling. I find biology really confusing, so learning about it everyday for like 4 months was pretty hard on me. I had and amazing teacher, who made this experience a lot better, though I still struggled. One of my projects was “Mind over Matter”, and I have to say this is the project I am the least proud of, out of all my projects this year. In this project we learned all about matter, and at the end of it, we made a video game that reflected the knowledge we gained from the unit.

This project is my least proud for 1 main reason. This reason is that I feel I took an easy route for my final keystone, and did the easiest, mindless game I could. And that is embarrassing, and doesn’t reflect the learner I want to be. I feel that I could have done so much more in the project, but for a reason I can’t quite figure out our I didn’t. I feel like I have let down my teacher and class when I think of this project, because normally I see myself as a smart and leader-like student, but this project changes that. Luckily, I can take away some things from it. One thing, is that I need to work on my dedication. I do care about my education very much, but sometimes I almost forget that. I continue through each project to try and take the extra step, do the extra work, and put in the extra time. I have seen this as a pattern of mine fore a while now, so I know I need to do something about it. For next year I want to make this a big goal of mine. I feel it will make a big difference in myself as a learner.

Maker

I had maker in my first semester this year. Maker was a very interesting class, I learned a lot about the technology I use everyday, and became very confident using it. Most of my Maker projects were pretty easy and straightforward for me. Now, except for my Pandora’s box project. This project is one of my favourite projects I have ever done in my entire life. The process of it was not, but that makes the outcome so much better.

I am a very ambitious, creative, and persistent person when it comes to art projects! For this project, we learned about the movie avatar, and then we did a project off of it. We connected avatar to the real world, and got to present it through a artefact that we made. My real world connection was about nature and the negative relationship. The humans had with the nature on Pandora, I am in nature activist, so this was first thought for me because I care so much about this topic I wanted to do something really big and really impressive. I decided to make a hanging tree model of a tree that was very important to the native animals on Pandora in avatar, something that is important to know about me is I am a perfectionist so when I came up with this idea, I knew I needed it to be perfect. This made it really hard because I ran into lots of problems during it. making the tree and hanging it was so hard and took so long and near the end, I was kind of done with it. They were lots of times where the tree broke, or times when I couldn’t hang it the way I wanted to. Instead of giving up and doing something different, I kept with my plan and ended with a beautiful gorgeous piece of art that I could not be more happy with.

This shows my skill of perfectionism, which now I am happy to say is a skill. I talked about this in my mPOL, like how I’ve find perfectionism strength and weakness. I’ve talked about how I wanted to find the perfect middle, so it could be a strength, and I feel like I have finally gotten there. Obviously there’s always time to improve, and I will never be perfect, but I am definitely getting better. I also showed some of my less academic base skills, like my creativity, and art.

Humanities 

The last project I want to talk about is my “The Medium is the Message” project. This project was all about advertising, and in the end we got to make our own ads for real companies. This is a project I really struggled with, for lots of reasons. For one, we were working on it during our Oregon trip, so I had a hard time remembering to do the work because we were always doing stuff! Then, the following week, my teacher wasn’t there, so that made it harder for me to ask questions that only she could answer. I already find myself having a hard time doing work if I’m not a 100% sure of what I’m supposed to be doing, so for those two busy weeks I always felt unsure of my knowledge and projects. 

Another part of the project the project I really struggled with was making the actual ad. I know that I am creative, and I know I can be a good artist, but having the thought of my work being related to a real company scared me. I didn’t want to disappoint the owner of the business I was advertising for, because I thought it would be almost disrespectful showing her something she didn’t approve. All of these thoughts made my start to the project really slow, but finally I was getting somewhere. I got lots of great feedback from my teacher, which really helped my ad improve. Sadly, I didn’t get any feedback from my class, even when doing feedback activities. Not getting feedback was really hard, because feedback from my peers is very important. Just getting feedback from my teacher can be pretty tricky, because sometimes I take the feedback a little to personally. That is something I want to work on next year. Taking feedback more positively and openly, and then actually trying it. I think I wouldn’t have struggled so much during this project if I improved that skill of mine.

So, to answer the driving question, I feel I am ready to advance to the next grade level because I am still learning, improving my skills, understanding my weaknesses, and growing as a person. And the fact that I am aware of this is why I feel I am ready to advance to the grade level. 

Thank you for reading my tPOL! This is gonna be the last you’ll hear from me for a while, but I’ll talk to you when I become a super cool 9th grader. 

I had a really good time going to Oregon with my class. We went to lots of cool places, became a better team, and learned a lot. We learned a lot about our humanities project and a lot of information related to it, but we also learned lots of other things.

The project I am working on is about advertising, and in the end I am actually making an ad for a real company. My company is Marine Discovery Tours, which I got to interview on this trip. I learned a lot about what I should be putting in my ad, like the way they want their customers to first see them, to the colour scheme we should use. Talking to the owner was a great experience, and gave us all this information. She also expressed that she wanted a new logo, so now I know I should redesign it and make a new one for my ad. 

I didn’t just learn about my company though, because I am only one of a few kids advertising for them. I got to see so many other companies (companies my friends could be advertising for), and how they are successful. We didn’t just go to small companies, we also went to really big ones like Tillamook! Going into Tillamook was a great way to see success, and paying attention to advertising techniques they might be using. 

I definitely got inspired and got my brain moving for this project.

Now like I said, I didn’t just learn things that had to do with my project. I also did lots of “other learning”. One thing that I learned is that I lose things very fast. I lost my wallet twice (found it both times), and I left my bag on the bus after we had fully unpacked and locked the bus. Luckily a teacher saw it and gave it to me. Losing something so important like the wallet, even for a short period of time, made me realize I need to stay more organized. 

Another thing I learned is that I sleep best in busses in really weird positions. I fell asleep very fast every bus ride, and was fully energized for the next stop! This was a very positive thing I learned about myself, and I plan to use it in the future.

The biggest, and most important thing I learned about myself is that I like yogurt. It was like a love story. After visiting the Tillamook cheese factory my teachers were inspired to buy Tillamook food items for breakfast. This meant the magical Tillamook yogurt. At first I told myself I wouldn’t have any, because after all I don’t like yogurt. So I went along my merry way eating breakfast until… I finished eating everything on my plate and was STILL hungry. I didn’t want to eat anything I had already eaten, but I knew I needed fuel. I  decided to try some yogurt. I went up to where the all the food was, and saw a few yoghurt cups left. The flavours were very limited, but I found a fruit that looks like a blackberry, and because I like blackberry, I decided to pick that one. I grabbed the yoghurt and walked back to my table. I sat down, took the lid off, and had my first bite. To my horror… I loved it.

Overall my Oregon trip was really good, and I would definitely do it again! I made a journal during this trip, that talks about what we did in more detail, where we went, and everything we learned! Check it out!

FUN FACT: I am actually doing it again, but instead of with my class I am doing it with my family this summer.

Photo dump time🥳

In this science unit I learned a lot.

Keystone 1: In what ways do we interact with and describe matter?

In Keystone  we learned about: what is matter, chemical and physical properties, and quantitative and qualitative observations. After learning all about these things, we got to make a “Who am I?”. A “Who am I?” is describing on object using physical properties, chemical properties, quantitative observations, and qualitative observations, so that someone can guess what your object is. I picked a block of wood.

I really enjoyed this project, getting to make the “Who am I” was really easy to make. I really enjoyed the math component, finding the mass,  volume, and density.

Keystone 2: How does the kinetic molecular theory contribute to different states of matter?

In keystone 2 we learned about: the different states of matter and how they change, diffusion and osmosis, and the kinetic molecular theory. All of this lead to my favourite project, the gummy bear diffusion. For this project we created our own question, came up with our own procedure, and the recorded our observations to answer the question we made. This was a group project, so I got to do it with my two friends Sydnee and Ailie! Our question was “Do different temperatures and types of water effect the rate of diffusion?”. 

This project was really fun, I love hand-on experiments. This was definitely my favourite project of this unit.

Keystone 3/Final Project: 

In keystone 3 we learned about: atoms and the structure of one. I liked this part a little less, just because it confused me. The project was fun though, we made a video game! We used scratch, and had to make a video game that reflected the knowledge we gained throughout our entire unit. My video game was a true or false game, which was pretty easy to make.

Overall, this science unit was really good. I’m not the best at science, so it always makes me really happy when I finally understand. I learned a lot and feel more confident in my science abilities.

Try my video game ⬇️!

Small But Mighty was my first science unit. For this unit I learned all about the immune system and public health. Through three keystones and 1 finish line project, we were answered the driving question: “How can our knowledge of cell biology contribute to public health?”. 

This whole project was really fun. For keystone 1 we got to do lots of hands on work. We made Petri dishes, and a field journal documenting the progress to answer the driving question: How do we interact with microorganisms here at school? With the petri dish’s and the field journal, we had to make a hypothesis and prediction. Mine was “The washrooms that are used more then others will have more microorganisms”. 

I really enjoyed this project, because normally we don’t get to do hands-on work like this for our projects! I also really liked coming up with a hypothesis because it made me use my brain in a way I don’t think I normally do. It felt like a challenge to come up with an original hypothesis I liked, and actually wanted to answer. It took me a while, but I am happy with it.

My next keystone (#2), was making my immune system character cards. We learned about the immune system, before this keystone, specifically about the B-cells, T-cells, Antibodies, White blood cells, and macrophages. We then made a “character” card for each of these. I based all of my character cards off of “Barbie Life In The Dream House” characters, because I will forever be a #barbiegirl. 

This project was really fun because I got to draw each character. I hadn’t drawn in a while, so it was a reason to use my creativity again. I wasn’t feeling to confident about how I did though. We didn’t just draw for our character cards, we also had to write about them, and what each cell did. I feel like I could have given a better description, but I was feeling rushed because we didn’t have as much time as I would have liked. 

The third keystone might have been my favourite. For this keystone, we got to make posters de-bunking a myth about vaccines. I made a poster with my partner Izzy, de-bunking the myth about microchipping through vaccines. 

I really enjoyed this project because I got to work with my friend Izzy, and learn about people’s theories on microchipping. I have always been interested in conspiracy theories, the government using microchipping as one of them. I loved doing research about it, because getting to find all the reasons to why this didn’t work was like a puzzle. I had to find lots of little pieces to build into one big piece. I found lots of really good articles on people de-bunking this myth, and then reading people disagree with them. I also really liked that this project reflected real-world issues. Lots of people don’t get vaccines, and that effects everyone. Making this poster could hopefully give people a new look on vaccines, and make them re-think their decision.

The last thing I made was a public health poster for kids. This project was pretty simple. All we had to do was incorporate a drawing of a pathogen made by elementary schoolers, have a snappy slogan, and show your knowledge over what we learned this past month. Other then this project, I am confident I did well throughout the unit. This finish line project is something I am not so confident about. I feel like my poster add a lot less detail then others, and was missing some elements. I noticed lots of peoples had facts on them, while mine doesn’t. I know I don’t have to do what everyone else does, but it is something I wish I could have incorporated into it.

Overall, I am very happy with this unit, and am over proud of my work!

How do you think I did?

For this humanities project I got to create a historically accurate diary made by Christopher Columbus. This diary had to answer the driving question: “What sparked global exploration and what was the impact?”. 

I had lots of fun with this project, coming up with ways to talk about events that lead up to European exploration while still making it seem like a journal was a real challenge that got my brain working. I also had a word limit (I may have gone a little over) which made it really difficult to fit all the information I needed and wanted, and making sure story actually sounded good. I think I did really well with this project, and I think I shared what sparked global exploration and what were the impacts really well. I had to write in the first person, so talking about the future is really difficult and different. I really liked this final project for this unit because it challenged me.

I did notice throughout this project I got a little “lost”. I was very unsure of what my diary had to look like, and seemed to be struggling to stay on task. In the future, I think I have to continuously remind myself to stay focused, because it was all the little things I missed that left me so unsure.

I hope your read my book, and I hope you enjoy it!

Do you think it answers the driving question?

I made my Triptych with the editing app SuperimposeX! I used historical paintings from the Renaissance, with the historical innovations to create each panel (except the middle because I didn’t need historical innovations for that one!). I also had to edit my face into each panel, because my Triptych is staring me!

Learning about the Renaissance was a journey for me; it started hard, but slowly became easier. It was hard for me at first because I was learning so much information so fast, and I had to takes NOTES! I was very overwhelmed, but as I took more and more notes, I got used to it, and it stared becoming helpful. Because I was learning so much, it was hard to remember everything. But as I took notes, I would have a page of the information I need, and could always look back too.

From this project I took two important things; the skill of photoshop, and being able to take notes again(and actually appreciate them!). I was really happy with this projects, even with its ups and downs, ending with a Triptych I know I worked hard on and am proud of. I also think I answered the driving question: “How did ideas from Europe and Asia change the world?”.

Do you think I answered the driving question? 

Welcome back to by blog!
This week in maker, I learned how to use sketches pro to make beautiful art! I experimented with colours, shapes, and lines to become the artist I am!
At the end of the week, I put all of my artwork into book to present to the world. My art reflects the skills I have learned, and the process I have made, even in this short period of time!
I hope you enjoy!

As I make my way through the start of high school, I am becoming more familiar with myself; strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, and learning habits. These traits of mine effect my work, my mindset, and my overall well-being.

I always find myself with strengths and weaknesses that are very similar, like my perfectionism. Being a perfectionist helps me stay motivated to work on projects to my full extent, but becomes a problem when I start to “care too much”.  This happened to me when I was working on my Crusades project in humanities. I had to create a learning resource about the crusades, which seems pretty straightforward. But not for me. I had reached a point where I was writing paragraphs on paragraphs until I was satisfied with my work. I made many slideshows, with very detailed hand drawn images, which I spent so much time on, until I was finally happy with it. This caused me spending long hours at night, causing tried or emotionally drained. I look back at this project, and am happy with how it came out, but disappointed of my proses to create it. I still do this for lots of projects, but I am slowly getting better at not putting such high expectations on myself, or “caring a little less”, in my mind. 

I still need to appreciate my perfectionism, though. Like I said earlier, it can keep me motivated to work on projects as best as I can, even when they create challenges, or I come to a problem. I noticed this when I was working on my exhibition project, Pandoras Box. I got to create a box which had an artifact from the movie “Avatar”, which revealed something about our society (racism, corporate greed, humans v nature, etc). I had a very difficult idea, which was to create a tree which was important in Avatar, after it had been knocked over. I wanted it to be hanging, and look exactly how I envisioned it. I ran into lots of problems during this project, like what my tree artifact would be made of, how I would hang it, or how I would make a box(frame in this case) that was strong enough to hold a tree. In a different world, I would have given up, but because I feel this need to continue, like I know if I try hard enough it will work, I persisted. I came up with ideas, tried different things, asked other people for help. I still worried, and probably spent more time then necessary, but in this case, I was much more grateful for my perfectionism.    

It’s funny to me that I didn’t talk about me being a perfectionist in my learning plan, because I have been one for a very long time, and have been aware of it. I know this is something I have to really work on, because it is affecting me negatively more then positively. I want to start coming up with ways that I can balance my perfectionism,  so I can still be motivated and passionate, but without the stress and pressure I give myself. When I get to my tPOL, I hope I can say say that I have done at least 1 project  where I didn’t drive myself crazy trying to make it the most perfect thing in the world.

Over the past few weeks, I have been creating a project that I could present in the Winter Exhibition. I learned a lot in this process, like how I created my project, or how I should present my project.

Brainstorm:

For my box, I had to create an artifact from the movie “Avatar”, that reflected my theme statement, which I also made off of the movie “Avatar”. My theme statement is, “ More often then not, people will disregard the value and importance of nature for money.”. I made this theme statement because you can see in “Avatar”, the negative relationship between the humans, and the Navi people(the indigenous creatures to the land). After I created my theme statement, I designed an artifact from the movie that I thought connected well with the statement. I choose to make “Home Tree” fallen over, after the humans had cut it down. I thought this would work really well with my theme statement because the humans cut down the tree for a very valuable mineral underneath it, even though they knew it was super important. Now that I had an idea of what I wanted to make, I started actually building it. 

Creating:

I started making my project by building the artifact; Home Tree. I used styrofoam to create a base model for the tree and stump, by cutting up different pieces of foam and gluing them together. Then I used natural dry clay to cover the styrofoam, starting to make it look more like a tree. The clay added curves, aswell as texture. I did the same process with the stump, but it took me lots of try’s because I couldn’t get the shape right. After finally getting a stump I thought looked good, I started painting both pieces brown. Then I added the fake moss, which was used as leaves on the tree. Now that I finished the artifact, I made the box. I used wood planks, which I cut to proper size, and then screwed together. After making the two most important parts, I connected them together. I did this by hanging the tree and and stump with fishing line from the top and bottom of the box. I had drilled holes into the top and bottom of the box so I could put the fishing line through. Then I tied the fishing line around the tree, after tying the other end to a part of the box. I did this to the stump once, and the tree three times, so both would stay in place, and hopefully not move/swing. As a final touch, I used leftover moss to cover the bottom of the box, adding a more natural feel to it.  

The Presentation:

I had by project done, now I had present it. I presented at the winter exhibition, where anyone could come look at my work. Before I presented it, I had to do a few things. The first thing was planning my room. I had to turn my room into a theme; an abandoned planet. My group worked really well together to gather ideas on how we could do this. We decided to: cover the walls with black paper, have a path on the floor that looked like rocks, and have the door look like a time travel machine. We also had to bring food and drinks, and have an engaging activity for the guests. For food and drinks we pick coke and ice tea, which were supposed to look like polluted water, and brownies+cookies, which were supposed to look like pieces of dirt. For the engaging activity, we chose to have a pile of garbage which we asked guest to pick up, and put in a garbage bin. At the bottom of the pile, there was a flower, representing that we can still make a positive impact, and save the planet. Everyone worked really hard, until we had a room that we liked. We could only start decorating a few hours before presenting, but we got it done. Each person had a spot planned for them, I was somewhere in the middle. I had table, which I had my box project placed on. Then guests started coming, so I started sharing information about my project, like how I made it, or the idea behind it. I had to be very interactive, because most people did not come up and ask me questions, instead I had to start talking, which felt awkward at times, but I slowly got used to it. I did that from 5:30 to 8, so I spent lots of time sharing my project, which I tried to do differently each time.

Lessons Learned:

Having done this project, I have learned the following: I should be more confident it my ideas, I shouldn’t spend to much time planning my project rather then working on it, time management is something I should work on, communication in a team is very important, and how I should be more appreciative of feedback.

This project was a fun and new experience for me, which I am looking forward to doing again.

My Final Piece: